TechnoMoral Change in Data-collection technologies and privacy.

Abstract

TechnoMoral Change refers to the process where technology influences morality and vice-versa. This research explores whether TechnoMoral Change has occurred between data-collection technologies and privacy. In the past years, technological developments have made it easier to access, collect, store and analyze large amount of data. As both governments and companies use these technologies to collect personal data of of individuals, the privacy of those individual may be at stake. To test whether there has been a moral change, court cases of the last 20 years that concern possible privacy violations have been analyzed. Along with the court cases, technologies and relevant laws are being reviewed. The results show a spike in the amount of relevant court cases in 2018. 2018 was also the year where a new European-wide law, the General Data Protection Regulation was implemented. Due to this law, designed to protect individuals from new technological developments concerning data-collection, is became easier to sue governments, companies and individuals that possibly violated privacy. This law is expected to be one of the main reasons for the spike in privacy-related court cases. Other explanations are the extensive media coverage after well known privacy violations, such as the widespread data-collection by the NSA. While there has been a change in the number and nature of court cases during the years, more research is needed to ensure that TechnoMoral Change has occurred. This paper sheds a first light on the matter and shows a possible change in thoughts and views on privacy, but is not able to make a conclusive statement about the matter.